Bonnie Meltzer
Portland, Oregon

Butterfly Effect

$875

To purchase this work please contact Laura at 23 Sandy Gallery.

I have been collecting and making globe works for a decade. A globe along with other found objects in my studio help me formulate an idea. The broken doll and a not finished necklace in conjunction with the globe pushed me into thinking about the connections we have with the rest of the world, no matter how tenuous.  It exists like a thread, whether we are conscious of it and have the words to express the relationship or not. The fringe of wild hair, on person and globe, represent the lack of clarity of that connection and the distressed state of each.

Globe, doll, fabric, wire, letters, paint, 20 x 24 x 12 inches, 2010.

Global Warming

$1000

To purchase this work please contact Laura at 23 Sandy Gallery.

I was thinking of the earth in the sky, cradled by clouds and heated up by a flame. In this iteration cars and trucks are portrayed as the cause although they are not the only factors creating global warming. Perhaps next time I’ll include cows or chopped down trees instead.  Sunglass lenses in a meager attempt to protect, complete the image of a too hot Earth of high sea levels changing the coastlines.

Crocheted wire with beads, globe and other found objects, painted paper. 24 x 24 x 15 inches, 2008.

Artist Biography

Objects stimulate Bonnie Meltzer’s imagination and push the idea flow for her very mixed media figurative and abstract constructions.  Computer parts, musical instruments, clothes and globes, for example,  give her a symbolic, visual and verbal vocabulary in which to frame an idea. She mixes objects, painted wood, digital photographs and crocheted wire to create complex surface textures and to increase the nuance of content. The multi-levels of materials and ideas can give both a serious and a humorous component to her work at the same time. She uses ordinary objects as metaphors that reflect both social commentary and personal history. Politics, technology, and land use balance out identity and memory themes.

Originally from New Jersey, Meltzer lives with her husband in a colorful cottage with an outbuilding studio in the yard.  Both are surrounded by an enormous organic vegetable garden.  She came west to get an MFA at the University of Washington and stayed to become an Oregonian. She has exhibited widely in the NW including Maryhill Museum, The Portland Children’s Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Craft and Omsi. Her work is included in many private and public collections including The National Science Foundation, University of Washington School of Business, Pavelcomm and the Community Music Center.